Buddhism Beyond Robes and Incense
Mike on Dogen’s description of Buddhism from four viewpoints: theory, health, action and zazen
Michael Eido Luetchford
June 2006 — Padmafarma, Talk 1.
Venue: Padmafarma, Bělá u Jevíčka, Czech Republic.
Michael Eido Luetchford · June 2006 — Padmafarma, Talk 1
Source: audio transcript.
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Audio
PadmaFarm 1.mp3 in the Google Drive folder
What the talk says (short overview) — About these overviews
Mike asks what Buddhism actually is, pointing out that anyone can wear a robe or burn incense in front of a statue, and that Gautama, in the story Mike tells, had no chanting, no incense and no books about Buddhism. His answer is a very simple explanation drawn from the writings of Dogen, a 13th-century monk whose description of Buddhism Mike found very real, simple and profound after studying it for more than twenty years, and it looks at Buddhism from four viewpoints: theory, bodily health, being active and zazen.
Dogen, he says, finds Buddhist theory everywhere, not only in books but in forests, mountains, the sea and our lives, which Mike reads in modern terms as meaning that any theory that tells the truth of this world, from mathematics and science to sports psychology, counts as Buddhist theory, so that a Buddhist can study everything. On bodily health, where the information keeps contradicting itself, Mike says that a balanced diet matters because food affects us, and that the most important thing is regularity in getting up and going to bed, which many people dislike hearing because they think only old people live like that. The third viewpoint, being active, has in Buddhism a simple and unintellectual meaning, doing something instead of thinking about it. Modern society is built on thinking and planning, which Mike calls necessary but costly, since we sometimes lose our freedom, and so Buddhism encourages us to rediscover that freedom by acting freely instead of planning everything to the last detail. He gives the koan in which a student asks a master for the essence of Buddhism and is told to wash his bowl after finishing eating, and he names sport as the biggest thing in modern society that helps us act, since half an hour of simply acting in the gym brings our freedom back.
Zazen, the fourth viewpoint, is described by Dogen from four sides: as different from thinking, as balancing body and mind, as oneness of body and mind, and as oneness with the universe. For balance, Mike uses the two opposed halves of the autonomic nervous system, one making us active or aggressive and the other passive or satisfied, and says that in zazen we wobble between them, so that real balance is wobbling rather than the perfect balance we imagine. Dogen says we need not make body and mind one but only stop making them two, and Mike pictures this with a television advertisement in which a car breaks into pieces that become a robot, comparing it to how we pull ourselves apart into many thoughts, feelings and worries and are skilful at doing several things at once. Oneness with the universe, in his account, is the very simple satisfaction of not noticing any separation between oneself and the world, the person beside one or the room, because we are part of the universe. He adds that such a description sounds too perfect, since words create perfect pictures, while real zazen splits us into parts, thinking, feeling pain and hearing the loudspeaker, and only sometimes brings us together. Asked about the eyes, he says that opening them is usually better, although closing them is no problem for someone who is not sleepy, and that between staring closely and going inside there is a third way of looking, which is just looking. To a participant whose muscles on one side hurt more in zazen, he answers that zazen can ease tension whose cause we do not know, although it does not cure some muscle problems, that we all have slight physical habits we do not notice, as he himself did with a muscle problem from sitting in lotus for years, and that a serious muscle problem calls for a physiotherapist. Asked what to focus on in zazen, he says we focus neither on thinking nor on the body or breathing, that there is a subtle state between the two which we usually do not notice but find if we practice regularly, and that this state is normal rather than special, since a sport such as swimming or skiing trains us toward it, with its wobbling between too tense and too relaxed.
Complete English transcript — About transcripts
Editorial note: This transcript of a spoken talk has been lightly edited to read well as written text, keeping the speaker’s voice and meaning; the wording was adjusted with great care. We recommend listening to the original audio recording too.
Mike: At the start of the talk, we recite Kaikyoge. This one. And at the end of the talk, we recite Fueko. Let's recite Kaikyoge again. The rhythm is bom bom bom bom, this beat.
[recitation, 00:01:01–00:01:37]
Today I wanted to talk about what Buddhism is. In the West, there are many different schools of Buddhism. They're all called Buddhism. And we have Zen Buddhism, and Tibetan Buddhism, and Theravada Buddhism, and so on. And as I said yesterday, I only know one kind. But even from my narrow point of view, I can ask you a question. What is Buddhism? Is it wearing something like this, or a robe? In which case, anybody can wear this. Are they a Buddhist? Is it burning incense in front of the statue of the Buddha? So if somebody puts a statue of Buddha in their house, and they burn incense, are they a Buddha? Are they a Buddhist?
If we look at the beginning of Buddhism, four hundred years ago—sorry, two thousand four hundred years ago—a man called Gautama, in India. According to legend, he went into the forest, and in the forest he studied with the yogin how to find the highest level of consciousness. But after eight years he wasn't satisfied. So he came out of the forest, where he had been starving himself, and drank some milk and felt good. And then he sat under a tree in this posture, which is a yogic posture. And then, according to the story, after about one month he invented Buddhism. What did he invent? He didn't have this, or some kind of chanting. He didn't have incense. He didn't have any books about Buddhism. So what did he discover? This is the most important thing.
Also, he didn't write any books. After he died, many people wrote books about him, but these books were written many, many years ago, and sometimes they are difficult to understand. They're written in Sanskrit or Pali, and they're very flowery. Very poetic. So it's still difficult to find out what Buddhism is. In my case, I met an old Japanese monk, and he based his teaching on a Japanese monk who lived in the 13th century. And that monk was called Dogen. And Dogen was a very unusual man, because he wrote a lot of instructions and information about Buddhism. Of course, these instructions and descriptions are written in very medieval Japanese and Chinese. So even if we read them, it's difficult to understand. But I became interested and studied them for more than twenty years. And surprisingly, I found that his description of Buddhism was very real and very simple. Simple. But also profound.
So that was very interesting to me, because I have never been interested in extra things. It's my character. I'm rather rough. So this morning, at the first zazen, I forgot to light the incense. But at the next zazen I remembered. I want to tell you a very simple explanation of what Buddhism is according to the writings of Dogen. If you have a question or comment and you want to interrupt, please do it loudly. Or after half an hour, I'm going to stop, and then we can have questions or comments or discussion. Okay. Dogen often uses four different aspects to describe something. So I'm going to describe Buddhism from his four aspects, or four viewpoints.
First, there seems to be a theory about Buddhism. We can go into the shops and see thousands of books about Buddhism. So it seems important that we have some theory or philosophy about Buddhism. When Gautama went out of the forest and sat under his tree, and found something which was true, he went to find his friends to explain to them a kind of theory or philosophy. And we still have Buddhist philosophy now. But Dogen's idea of Buddhist philosophy or Buddhist theory is rather unusual. He says we can find it everywhere, not only in books, but also in the forest, or in the mountains, or at sea, or in our lives. So, according to him, in addition to written theory there is a kind of teaching of Buddhism from the universe. In the modern world, we can interpret this to mean that all theory which teaches the truth of the world is, we can say, Buddhist theory. It sounds very strange to say so.
So, mathematical theory, which describes exactly the path of a rocket, the trajectory, we can say is a theory about the truth. Theory in science about DNA, we can say is a theory about the truth. So, in Dogen's view, all theories, including science, mathematics, all kinds of writings, if they describe the truth of this world, are Buddhist theory. So, as Buddhists, we can study everything. Philosophy, science, sports psychology. Anything which tells us the truth of this world. This is Dogen's view about theory. So he embraces not just very narrow writings about historical Buddhism, but a much wider view. That's his first viewpoint.
The second aspect, we can say, is our bodily health. Buddhism is very concerned about bodily health. Dogen wrote a lot in his writings about how to look after our health. Of course, in the 13th century there wasn't so much information about health. Now we have too much information. If you eat butter, it's good for you. If you eat margarine, it's good for you. It's better not to drink any wine. It's better to drink one glass of wine a day. And so on. But we can say all these kinds of information about health are searching for the best way to live. So sometimes this way, sometimes that way. So to look after our health by eating the right food is very important. We put food inside our body, and so it has a big effect on us.
In the UK, some schools have big problems with children who are eating a lot of junk food. So one famous British cook designed a diet for schoolchildren, and they ran an experiment in one school. And after changing their diet the children became much calmer and, it seems, happier. Usually, if we eat food which we don't like, we don't think, oh, it's going to have an effect on me. Sometimes I eat a meal in a restaurant and it gives me indigestion. But I don't usually think, oh, this is bad for me. Generally, we should try and eat a good balanced diet. Also, our lifestyle, waking in the morning and going to bed at night, has a big effect on our lives. Master Dogen recommended getting up very early in the morning and going to bed early at night. But sometimes we find that impossible in modern life. So the most important thing is to be regular. Getting up at the same time every day and going to bed at the same time makes our life regular. But many people don't like to hear that. They think only old people live like that. So there are many aspects of our health that we can look after very easily in modern life. And in the 13th century, it was not so easy for Dogen to do this.
His third viewpoint, or aspect, is to be active. To be active can mean many things. In Buddhism, to be active has quite a simple and not intellectual meaning. It means to do something instead of thinking about something. Of course, we find that very difficult in modern society, because modern society is based on thinking. So often we think for long periods of time in order to plan what we are going to do in the future. If we lead our life only by thinking and planning in our head, without acting, our life is very unbalanced, and we tend to worry which way to go, what we should do, what we shouldn't do. So Buddhism recommends that we act stupidly.
Of course, you can't go to work and say to your boss, ‘I'm a Buddhist, so just I do that. Now do this. I don't need a plan.’ We have to live in human society. But we should notice very clearly that human society is a construction based on the human ability to think. And although thinking and planning before acting is absolutely necessary in modern society, at the same time it has a very big effect on us. Sometimes we lose our freedom. So Buddhism urges us, encourages us to discover our freedom again by acting freely. So, not planning everything to the last exact detail, but jumping forward in a more free manner.
There are many stories in ancient Buddhism, especially from China. They're called koan stories. The group from Japan which I belong to translated many of these koans. And if you read them, some of them are very amusing. But in many of the stories you can see Buddhists encouraging people to act. So, for instance, there's one story where a student and a master are eating together. And the student is eating, but while he's eating, he's thinking about something. So he says to the master, ‘What is the very essence of Buddhism? Please explain it to me.’ The master says, ‘Have you finished eating?’ The student says, ‘Yes.’ The master says, ‘Wash your bowl up.’ So it sounds a bit stupid. But the master is saying, don't think, act.
As I said, this is quite difficult in modern society, because we invented such an excellent system of interlocking systems. Modern cities are very, very complex organisms. So we have to fit in. But by fitting into human society, we pay a price. So we should remember our own freedom to act. The biggest thing in modern society which helps us do that is sport. Even when I was a child, we didn't have so much sport at school. Not so many different sporting activities. But now we can go to the gym or to the sports club. We can go cycling or walking. We have tremendous freedom to follow some kind of sporting activity. And sporting activity teaches us how to act. So if we go to the gym after work, and we just act for half an hour or one hour, running on the running machine or something, then we find our freedom again. Then we feel, ah, it's better. Mental problems disappear.
The fourth aspect which Master Dogen uses is the practice of zazen. Of course, zazen is a Japanese word. But zazen has the same etymological root as Chan, which is Chinese. And the word Chan in Chinese came from the Pali jhāna. And in Pali, jhāna, or in Sanskrit, dhyāna. So zazen is the same word, etymologically, as dhyāna. And dhyāna is this. Gautama used the word dhyāna to describe this. We call it meditation in English. What do you call it in Czech? In English, it suggests some kind of mental process, possibly. But whether dhyāna is a mental process or not is difficult to say. So Master Dogen describes dhyāna, or zazen, from four different aspects.
He likes to look at things from four points of view. He says that dhyāna, or zazen, is different from thinking. Of course, sometimes in zazen we're thinking. Sometimes in zazen, we're not thinking. Sometimes in zazen, maybe we're thinking, maybe we're not thinking. Am I asleep? Am I awake? So it's different from thinking.
From the second aspect, zazen is balancing our body and mind. One way to describe balancing our body and mind is to talk about the autonomic nervous system. In the body, there are two halves to the autonomic nervous system. They act against each other. One half of the nervous system makes us aggressive or active. The other half of the nervous system makes us passive or satisfied. When we sit in zazen, we find the balance between the two aspects. Not so active or aggressive. Not so passive. In zazen, we can feel ourselves moving between the two, wobbling. Sometimes in zazen we feel sleepy. Sometimes in zazen we feel a bit excited. Or very wide awake. So we're wobbling between the two sides of our nervous system. This is one way to describe.
Also, physically, we are sitting in the balanced posture. When we sit in the balanced posture, our deep extensor muscles in the spine, the muscles between the bones, relax when we sit naturally straight. And when they relax, our spine becomes longer. And this has a balancing effect on our body.
The third aspect that Dogen uses to describe zazen: he says it's oneness between body and mind. How do we make our body and mind one? Well, he says we don't need to. We just stop making it two. On the television in England, there's an advertisement about a car. Maybe Citroën, I forgot. This car turns into many pieces, and the pieces become a big robot. Did you see?
Participant: Yeah, yeah.
Mike: So—
Participant: Transformer, no? Yeah.
Mike: Transformer. And then at the end it comes back to a car. So, we human beings pull ourselves apart into many parts, many different thoughts and feelings, worries. We often do two things at the same time, or three things at the same time. And we are very skillful at doing this. But if we stop doing it, we'd turn back into a car again. This is the meaning of oneness. So oneness between body and mind means we stop being two or three or four. Sitting in zazen, we stop thinking about separateness. And we stop concentrating on our perception. And slowly, we come back together. We become whole. Of course, my description sounds very nice. If you compare it with your zazen or my zazen, it sounds too perfect. It's true. Words always create very perfect pictures. However, if we practice zazen regularly, we can notice this kind of characteristic. Of course, in zazen, we are sometimes splitting into many parts, thinking and feeling the pain and listening to the loudspeaker.
But sometimes we come together, one. So we can say, in zazen we're wobbling. Sometimes sleepy, sometimes thinking, sometimes listening. Sometimes in the middle. And to be in the middle is balance. And although in our mind we think balance is something perfect, actually real balance is not like that. Real balance is wobbling. But in our mind, we have some perfect balance.
Mike: Then the last aspect that Master Dogen uses: he says zazen is oneness with the universe. Sounds wonderful. But when we sit in zazen, and we let ourselves come back together, then we don't notice a separation between me and the world. Me and the person beside me. Me and the room. So this very simple state is satisfaction. Master Dogen calls it oneness with the universe, because we are part of the universe. And the universe is something very complicated. But if we stop thinking about ourselves as separate people, we can notice we're just part of the universe. So that's Master Dogen's description of Buddhism from four viewpoints. So I'll stop there. If anybody wants to say anything or make comments, please.
Question: I'd just like to ask, because I may have missed it when zazen was explained at the beginning: in this zazen too, should we keep our eyes half-closed or open, or should we sit there and so on?
Mike: If you close your eyes, sometimes you go to sleep. So to open the eyes is usually better. But if you're not sleepy and you close your eyes, it's not a problem. But to sit in balance, it's easier to have your eyes open. And when we look at the wall, you can say there are two different ways of looking. Sometimes we look at the wall and we see little pieces on the wall, or a face, an angel. We're looking very carefully, and sometimes we go inside. So our eyes are open, but we are not seeing anything. Neither of those two. Between the two, there is another way. Just looking. Not looking very closely, and not going inside. So just looking.
Participant: Yep.
Mike: But if your eyes close a little, it doesn't matter.
Question: I'd like to ask about the physical side of zazen. Normally I'm unconsciously quite stretched on the right side, and now that I'm practicing zazen, it's precisely these muscles that hurt me more, as if they weren't used to it. So will this cause me problems in zazen, or is it an obstacle that I should first fix somehow, or will zazen itself somehow harmonize it?
Jana: That's quite a physical question.
Mike: Yeah. Zazen is fixing it.
Participant: Okay, right.
Mike: But why? Why is your side like that? There must be a reason.
Participant: Yeah, there must be a reason, and I think it can be somehow emotional, something like that, you know, on this side, like energy…
Mike: But for instance, do you drive the car like
Participant: No
Mike: this? No,
Participant: no, no.
Mike: Or
Participant: I don't know.
Mike: Today I'm doing this.
Participant: Now it's really like, when I don't think about anything or like that, I'm driving a car or doing something, and I'm not watching the body. Then I watch my body, I realize that I'm stretched here, but I don't have a reason, so it is something with emotions maybe from the past.
Mike: Yes, it's true. Sometimes when we're sitting in zazen, we can find muscle tension whose reason we don't know. We didn't realize it. So it's very difficult to find a reason. But when we sit in zazen, our muscles slowly drop off tension. The reason I say so is because I can see people's backs when they sit. And many times I saw people sit maybe like this, as if they have been working very hard on the computer. They come here, they sit straight. Then maybe after 15 minutes, 20 minutes, their muscles relax. And they sit like that. Of course, zazen doesn't cure some muscle problems. But if we have some kind of tension whose reason we don't know, it can improve it. But if we have a serious problem with the muscles, we should go to a
Participant: Physiotherapist.
Mike: Yes.
Participant: It's nothing like I would feel pain in normal life. Just when I do something like this, a little bit more extreme or unusual, I can feel it like a problem.
Mike: So maybe habitually you have some habit which you
Participant: Yes.
Mike: didn't notice. So we all have very slight physical habits. So for instance, some people like to sit like this. And they don't notice. They're always sitting like this. And they practice zazen, and their body is a little bit like that. They feel fine. So they think, oh, I'm straight. So we're all like that, everybody.
Participant: Can I say something about this? For several years, in zazen, this has been slightly increasing here… Even a year ago, I kept feeling it. So I can still feel it. I think I have a problem with the muscle. You know piriformis? Piriformis muscle, some people know. Deep muscle inside.
Mike: Because I usually sit in lotus position like this. So unconsciously I'm lifting my leg. So I'm making tension in this muscle. Maybe for 10, 15 years. Then maybe six months ago I got a muscle problem here. So then I noticed, ah yes, I have tension here. So I have to relax. But for fifteen years I didn't notice.
Question: And my second small question, but maybe it also was already said, but I somehow didn't remember when I was making zazen. What is the thing I'm focused on when I'm doing zazen with my mind, or am I to be not focused in nothing?
Mike: If we have something to focus on, it's very nice. But in zazen, we don't focus on mind, we don't focus on body. So we don't focus on thinking. We don't focus on body, breathing. What? There's nothing else. But there is something else. There is something subtle. There is a state which is not thinking and not focusing on physical, but between the two. But we don't notice it. In zazen, we wobble between thinking and feeling. And there's some other state. And if we practice zazen regularly, we find the other state. And this is not special, this is normal. If you practice a sport, you are practicing to get that state. If you're learning to swim, you're trying to get that state. So that state is at the centre of action. Not this way, not this way, but in the middle.
If you ski, people ski here?
Participant: Yeah.
Mike: When you learn to ski, you're wobbling. Too tense, too relaxed. And slowly you find something else, not too tense, not too relaxed. Whoa! That's the thing. Twenty past? Yes. For five more minutes. Any more questions or comments? Okay, so let's recite the second chant, Fueko. And this chant has a strange rhythm. The first four lines are normal chanting.
[recitation, 00:54:58–00:55:02]
Then the last four lines are much slower. Ji ho san shi i shi fu, like that. So follow me.
[recitation, 00:55:19–00:56:17]
Participant: Thank you very much.